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Paterson Signs Bill Limiting Stop-and-Frisk Data

Police officials in New York City can no longer electronically store the names and addresses of people stopped in the street to be questioned but found to have done nothing wrong, under a bill Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law on Friday.

At a signing ceremony in his Manhattan offices, Mr. Paterson ended a debate over the so-called stop-and-frisk database that had been raging for months and will fundamentally alter one of the Police Department’s chief crime-fighting strategies.

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Stop and Frisk in Brownsville, Brooklyn

Brownsville, Brooklyn, is ground zero in the New York Police Department's controversial crime fighting strategy known as stop, question and frisk.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly have argued that the database, originally created to comply with a law passed by the City Council in 2001, was invaluable because detectives could quickly cull it for clues they needed to solve cases and make arrests.

Stripping the database of the names and addresses of those stopped would result in more crime victims, Mr. Kelly said, who met twice with the governor this month in hopes of persuading him to veto the bill.

But in the end, Mr. Paterson said, “my conscience will not let me veto this bill.”

“There is a principle – which is compatible with the presumption of innocence, and is deeply ingrained in our sense of justice – that individuals wrongly accused of a crime should suffer neither stigma nor adverse consequences by virtue of an arrest or criminal accusation not resulting in conviction,” Mr. Paterson said.

Mr. Paterson was joined by the sponsors of the bill – Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and Senator Eric L. Adams – who voiced their support for the governor’s decision and said the issue boiled down to finding a balance between law and order and civil liberties.

“This is a tremendous victory for all fair-minded New Yorkers,” Assemblyman Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, said.

He said he believed that “reasonable efforts” to attain public safety must be “tempered by the privacy rights of law abiding people.”

Mr. Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat who had served 22 years on the Police Department before being elected to the Senate, said, “We do not allow the police in our country to hold the personal information of innocent people regardless of their ethnicity. This is wrong.”

Many pitched the debate forward – saying that the broader context of the department’s stop-and-frisk campaign could now be examined, with officials focusing on the “quality” of the street stops.

In 2009, the police documented 581,000 stops and have recorded nearly three million stops since 2004.

It is unclear how many of the people whose information is stored in the database were not fined or arrested after being stopped.

In a letter to Mr. Kelly on Thursday, Assemblyman Jeffries asked him to provide “the total number of people whose personal information is contained in the electronic N.Y.P.D. database.” He said he wanted to know how many of them had not been charged with a crime or issued a summons.

The new law applies only to the New York City Police Department, not agencies around the state. Under the law, the database would still include a record of the stop and catalog its points of data – including where and when the stop took place, the age and race of the person stopped and the reason that prompted the officer to make it.

Late on Thursday, as word circulated that Mr. Paterson would sign the bill, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expressed dismay.

“We’re disappointed that police officers will be denied an important tool they have been using to solve crimes and prevent others,” said the spokesman, Stu Loeser.

This is a very wise decision on the governor’s part. In spite of the mayor and police commissioner’s claims otherwise, this was a police-state style database that helped solve very few crimes. Meanwhile, the stop-and-frisk practice, done largely to meet quotas, it seemed, alienated the very people it was meant to protect.

Yesterday, I was stopped and frisked. Asked to get out of my car and searched, and my car was searched. There was no permission given to do any of this of course. They took down my license information and drove off.

You all have been duped. The real problem is the actual stop and frisk which is unconstitutional. Not just the record keeping. You are all welcome to your prison city. I have no desire to visit or transit through New York City.
I do however sympathize with the honest citizens.
Leave New York.

We leave in a city where threats come from every corner and someone has to protect us.
Paterson will be long gone when some “Time Square Bombing” alike could happen and we will find out that the person was stopped at some point but the data was cleared by Dave.

I guess now the NYC detectives will have to earn their badges and start detecting instead of booting up a computer.
Paterson seems to be ignoring the political pressure of late and rather than behave like a lame duck he has spread his wings and taken flight.
Started with the budget vetoes of the Albany dunderheads’ doings , now this.

This is a very wise decision as others have pointed out. Also, Alex D. If the police stopped you and then searched your vehicle WITHOUT permission the committed a crime. A “Terry” search is permissable (pat down) for the officer’s safety and they can look at items in plain sight. Beyond that, in the absence of probable cause (ie the smell of burning marijuanna) the police CANNOT search your vehicle without your consent. If they DO, they have committed a crime regardless of what they find. Remember kids, when a cop asks if he can search your vehicle, JUST SAY NO. Whenever a cop responds to me (invariably) with “What, do you have something to hide.” My response is, “No, just don’t feel like having my civil rights violated today.”
This is true in EVERY state. The police are doing waht is calloed “fishing for consent” when they ask for permission. Keep your rights, tell them NO. If they proceed THEY are in trouble, not you. If they had real probable cause they wouldn’t bother asking, they’d just cuff you and search the darn thing.
Finally, a cop will often threaten to “take you in” and then search anyway if you don’t allow the roadside search. CALL THEIR BLUFF! I once had this situation and the proper response is: “Go for it, arrest me, tow the vehicle and go to a judge and get a warrant. Then when you don’t find anything I’ll have YOU arrested for wrongful imprisonment and sue you. Still wanna play?” I do NOT recommend being confrontational w/ cops but when they push too far, explain the facts of law to them in a CALM voice and you will prevail or win a butt load of money and get to see a cop in real trouble him or herself for your aggravation.
Stay safe and maintain your rights!

this law is just showing how liberal this city is. im a minority leaving in nyc and dont have a problem with being complient with the nypd if your not planing on doing something wrong and have not done something wrong what is the problem. as much as some people think that the cops are here to harass they serve a purpose in my eyes if you didnt have the street cop moving people off the corners on hot summers night and stop people from entering building where someone grandma just got robbed then imagine what other crimes are gonna accure. if taking down my name helps the nypd catch those people that are trying to victimize others then so be it. i like walking home and seeing cops out. thanx gov paterson on making it easier for criminals to no be found

If you’re not scared of people having your name, why don’t you post your full name on your comment.

Whats worse, the NYT having your name or a police database?

Oh, and its soooooo obvious that you’ve never been stopped and frisked. If this happened to you 10 times before with each time taking 15 minutes while they search you and your car, you might have a different outlook on stop and frisk procedures. I’m sure anyone will. I do.

But before you rush to judgment go visit one of the communities where this is enforced and ask the residents how they feel about it and how they feel about the alternative which is hight crime. We are not talking about pick pockets but rather violent crimes in extremely dangerous communities.

Even the liberal NY times had to admit when they did a recent piece on this that residents were not opposed to it.

I am 27 years old, son of a lawyer. I lived in detroit for 6 years, then brooklyn for 13, then the Bronx for 7. Now in Brooklyn for the past 2.

I am very well aware of my rights as a law abiding citizen, and know VERY well what the police can and cannot do.

Truth is, you better comply with police before they pull you out of your own car window.

Standing up for your own rights is not worth spending the night in jail. If you let the police do what they want (because they’re going to do it anyway), you’ll just get harassed but you’d be able to go home that night.

This is a great start but # 6 is right…this doesn’t mean that the cops still can’t stop and frisk anybody at any time, even to ‘make sure that their orange juice container really contains orange juice!” (which was a documented instance of a stop and frisk in NYC….

1. Lived in Connecticut
2. Was not in the ghetto
3. Was not part of the 90% of black and hispanic people searched.

Most likely his name is not in the database and will NEVER be in there. Why? Because the tactics that NYPD uses are inefficient and ineffective.

I would think it that be obvious if 3 million innocent people are kept in a police database for a “just in case” reason.

Aren’t most drugs made in houses or property? Doesn’t that give reason to do random searches of property? Well if you have nothing to hide in your own house, then maybe we should let police goto everyone’s house and write everyone’s name down who lives inside and have all their possessions searched.. JUST IN CASE.

if they really need the database to fight crime, why dont they just stop everybody and have everybody’s personal info? why do they just do it for a few people?
do they somehow already know who is going to commit a crime?
how about the others who are not in the database or who are less likely to get into it because they stay in wealthier neighbohoods?
wouldn’t it be more useful if everybody was in it?
if they think it’s really helpful why don’t they make it mandatory and force everybody into it, instead of picking on a few?
how many people who want the database are in it? why don’t we get some volunteers to pass on all thier info et, especially those who advocate it?
justice and liberty are difficult, and they should be! that’s why there has to be thorough proof and debate in court. there is no short-cut to it. so they should find other ways of improving security and not taking away people’s privacy, especially if they are taking the privacy of only a few. what’s good for the goose must be good for the gander. if not, don’t do it because everybody must be equal under the law!

What does it tell us about our Billionaire mayor, who you can bet will NEVER be stopped and frisked? (Ditto for Bratton) Thank goodness the governor, who is so often portrayed as feckless by the corporate press, showed that when it comes to a basic respect for civil and human rights he stands head and shoulders above those who will trample on those rights.

Certainly this law will lead to a more efficient use of police resources. Stopping people has got to be time consuming and anyway it’s not clear how productive that is beyond harassing the general public.

You said it best: “There is a principle – which is compatible with the presumption of innocence, and is deeply ingrained in our sense of justice – that individuals wrongly accused of a crime should suffer neither stigma nor adverse consequences by virtue of an arrest or criminal accusation not resulting in conviction,” Mr. Paterson said.

I would only hope that you wiill take some further action to prevent such unwarranted, unconstitutional harassment of our citizens–all the stops. I do not HAVE to answer any cop who cares to stop and question me unless he’s got some good evidence.

Ask the residents of Brownsville, Brooklyn what they think of the stored computer data used by the NYPD! They can’t walk across a street without being ‘stopped and frisked’. For the minimum number of arrests made due to this data on ‘innocents’, this issue should be a no-brainer. This has been a clear violation of civil rights especially for all Black and Hispanic NY citizens. Being Hispanic, I’m glad my parents removed me from NY when I was just 2 y/o [despite still having that famous NY accent]. Good for Governor Paterson who deserves thanks for not going along with the thinking [nonthinking] of Bloomberg and Kelly.

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